


In the future when all's well

by marginaliana



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Time Travel Fix It, character death but in a good way, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-27
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-12-11 23:31:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11724855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marginaliana/pseuds/marginaliana
Summary: The bor gullet reaches out into Bodhi's past, into time itself, reading his whole life from beginning to end. Somewhere in the great seething morass of its grasp, things slip through. Things bleed backwards.





	In the future when all's well

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rosecake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosecake/gifts).



_The bor gullet has no hesitation, no grace, no care. It rips him open and burrows into him, finding the dark places and the light, stripping out his secrets. His small hurts and his petty revenges, his longings, his guilt and his shame, his carefully-hoarded joys._

_There are things he's forgotten, not deliberately, but as the inevitable consequence of a life lived, time passed. The bor gullet wants those things, too, and so it reaches out beyond Bodhi himself to Eadu and Jedha, the memories of his family and the Empire and Galen. It reaches out into time itself, rends and tears at the pieces. It reads his life from beginning to now, and it holds the whole of it in its arms like a mother and a child, like a predator and prey._

_Bodhi screams, and he screams, and he screams, and somewhere in the great seething morass of the bor gullet's grasp, things slip through. Things bleed backwards._

 

He was washing his face, a morning routine once supervised but now his alone; that change was new enough that he still felt his childish pride at being so trusted, still cleaned very carefully behind his ears and at the base of his nose in case he might be inspected later on. When those at last were as clean as could be, Bodhi rinsed the cloth and wrung it out, draped it over the bar that hung above the basin. 

He had only just turned to leave when something writhed across his mind, a rippling tendril lined with spines as sharp as pins. It hurt – oh how it hurt – worse than the sting of his scraped knees when he'd tripped and slid across the sand in the schoolyard, worse than the constant shivering ache of heat burn, worse than the bash he'd once taken to the head while weaving among stalls in the market, playing at being a Jedi paired against another child's Sith. It hurt worse than anything he'd ever known, and yet even the pain couldn't block out the fact that there was something more.

A life spooled out ahead of him, _his life_. Most of it was pale and insubstantial, a fairy tale told and heard but not yet memorized. Distant. But there was one bright moment close at hand, caught in one of the same prickling curls that was squeezing the breath out of him. One moment – and he knew that everything else rested on that moment. He could reach for it; he could change it. He barely understood anything, but he knew that much at least.

The tendril let go with a jerk, slithering away as fast as water down the plughole. Bodhi found that he was gripping the rough edge of the basin hard enough to hurt, hard enough that the knuckles of his hands had gone a curious pale color.

"Father," he said, the word bursting out of him. " _Father_ , Papa!" His parents came running, their feet sounding a hollow rat-a-tat all the way up the thin, rickety stairway.

"Bodhi love, what is it?" his father asked.

He didn't know how to explain it; but he could say what he'd seen, at least. "The storm," Bodhi said. "The tree by the gates, the big one. People will hide from the storm there, but, the branches…" He let go of the basin, making a jagged motion with his hands. "They'll die. Everyone."

"What storm?" 

"The _storm_ ," Bodhi said impatiently, stamping his foot. "It's coming today. People will want to go under the tree but they'll die." Now that the first flush of it was over, the full weight of what he'd seen was beginning to sink in. "There were so many," he said, helplessly.

"Did you have a bad dream?" his papa said slowly.

"It wasn't a dream," Bodhi said. "It was just now. I saw it. Not with my—" He poked himself in the eyelids. "But I saw it."

"Are you sure?"

"It wasn't a dream," Bodhi said stubbornly. "I know what a dream is. It was something else."

"All right," his father said, smoothing Bodhi's hair back from his face. "All right. Come down to breakfast now."

They would hear no more of it, after that, just ushered him downstairs, exchanging glances over his head as if he couldn't see them. He didn't know if they believed him. But what else could he do? He'd never felt quite so small as he did now, so helpless. His hands were still shaking a little from the residual pain of the creature's touch, and his stomach was roiling so hard that he could barely eat. If he could have gone to the tree himself, made people understand – but he knew it wouldn't be that easy. Adults never listened to children, not about serious things. Especially not children who were strangers to them.

He made one last attempt at saying something as his papa took him to school; their usual path took them past the gates but today they went a different way, down around the back of the market's edge and then up again through streets thick with dust. The dust might mean that the storm was coming in soon.

"Papa, the tree," Bodhi said.

His papa shook his head. "Enough, now," he said. "That's enough about this," and there was a tone to his voice that told Bodhi there was no use saying anything else.

He was distracted at school, too nervous to pay attention to his teachers, and it might have gotten him in trouble but for the fact that the storm swept in late in the morning, interrupting the whole track of the day. The teachers closed the shutters and bolted them tightly, and they all sat together in the darkness – it was too dangerous to light a candle or a bulb, even closed in like this – singing all the songs they'd been taught over the years: The Three Camels, O Wind of the Desert, There Was a Thirsty Crow, Moon Come Running to Me, Iulia the Wicked, Swing Your Hands My Dear.

By the time the storm had passed, the day was mostly gone. Bodhi's father came to get him and they walked back through the city on their usual path; when they passed the square Bodhi could see three huge branches down, windows shattered, bits of pottery smashed all over the street. But it didn't look like what he'd seen – there were no bodies laid out in the tree's remaining shade, each covered in a threadbare black shroud. 

_I changed it,_ he thought. _I did it._ He ought to have been happy; he was happy. He'd saved those people. And yet something in him knew that he'd changed more than just this. He'd changed his own life, too. Because of that, he was afraid.

That night when his parents sent him to bed, he went without complaint. But later he crept into the hall to the top of the stairs, the closest place he could reach without being seen. It wasn't quite close enough – they were speaking too quietly for him to make out the words. But he could tell just from the tone that they were worried, that they were arguing.

Three weeks later, they took him to the Temple.

 

_Something shifts. One of the bor gullet's arms grips him tighter. Bodhi screams, a fresh sort of noise that ought not to be possible from the ruin of his voice. The bor gullet doesn't let go._

 

He was playing nega-ball, a familiar dusty pastime during the few leisure hours allotted to the children of the temple. They'd all long since learned to take the measure of each other – Jonila, who sang vibrations out of the Kyber, was lousy at throwing but good at catching; Montuk, who spoke only in words written by Guardians long dead, was slow but solid and strong; Roviden, who at age seven wrote poetry that made people weep, was the best of them at distracting the opposing team, leading them one way while her teammates circled around from behind. Others, nearly thirty in all, each with their own gift.

And Bodhi, who… was Bodhi. Who in four years hadn't had another vision.

It was a hot day, one of the longest of the year with NaJedha in the wrong part of the sky to provide any relief from the sun. When he found himself on his knees in the dust he thought at first it was just heat sickness, that maybe he'd missed his water ration somehow or eaten something rotten.

But then someone shouted his name; halfway through the word, the sound of it disappeared as the tendrils ripped into him.

It came the same way as the first vision. Pain first, almost too much to bear. Then the long distant wisp of his life, like looking out onto the desert horizon at dusk. One memory close in the arms of the beast, lit from above. He began to understand why it was only this one moment that he could see vividly – the rest of it wasn't real until that moment had passed. If he changed it, he could change the rest. 

When he came back to himself there was dust in his eyes, his hair, under his fingernails where they'd been clenched in the sand. He pushed himself up into a crouch. 

"Bodhi," said Roviden, but when he raised his head she fell silent. Whatever it was the others saw in his face, it was enough to part them before him like sand dunes under the rough western winds.

The ninth padha of the Temple was many stories up; Bodhi was panting from the long, hurried climb when he burst in. Heads raised in alarm.

Master Mon was visibly angry at the interruption. "You are not allowed—" 

"Hush," Master Chirrut said, holding up a hand. "It's young Rook." Bodhi had no idea how he knew that, when he hadn't said a word – but Master Chirrut had always known impossible things.

"They're coming," Bodhi said, heaving in a breath. "The men in white."

"Stormtroopers," someone hissed. 

"We'll have to—"

"Why do they come?" said Master Chirrut, cutting through the babble with his usual directness.

"For the crystals," Bodhi said. "And… boys, the young ones. None older than ten, but for Seital – he is small enough that they will take him. Not girls." He had only a dim understanding of why this would make a difference to anyone, but in the vision it had been clear enough.

"We can send the boys out into the city," said Master Jahmi. "But we can't hide _all_ the crystals. We'll have to choose – the ones that can be carried, I suppose."

"Jonila can tell which ones are important," said Bodhi, and they all looked at him in surprise. 

"Can he?"

"Yes. They sing—" He waved a hand. "I don't know how it works."

"Bring him," said Master Chirrut. "And have the rest of the boys pack a bag."

"I'll go with him," said Master Baze. He put a hand on Bodhi's shoulder and led him away. 

It took two hours to gather the crystals and dole them out among the younger boys. Master Baze led them out the side door of the temple into the marketplace, heads veiled; Bodhi went too, his safety deemed essential, and when he glanced back he could just see a flicker of white as the stormtroopers arrived at the front gate.

\-----

They returned three days later, frightened and tired but all together with their crystals intact. That night Bodhi heard footsteps in the corridor, stopping just outside his room. 

"Is it the Force that gives him these visions?" said Master Baze, almost too quietly for him to make out. Bodhi held his breath

Master Chirrut hummed. "Everything is the Force," he said eventually.

"Are you actually allergic to saying anything helpful?" said Master Baze, and Bodhi had to turn over on his pallet to hide his laughter.

 

_The bor gullet retreats a fraction of an inch, but its hesitation is only momentary. Bodhi sucks in a breath – he's bought himself that much time – and then it slashes into him again._

 

"A cargo pilot," Master Mon said flatly. "An _imperial_ cargo pilot."

"Yes, master," said Bodhi. "I know it seems an unusual choice, but it's what I have to do." This time the vision had come in his sleep and he'd woken screaming loud enough to wake the whole wing. His throat still ached, but there was a certain peace to be found in knowing his path.

"Will you return?" asked Master Jahmi.

Bodhi hesitated. "Perhaps. Better for the temple if I don't, I fear. But— it isn't clear. What I see is one path. As I change, it changes."

"You have a long flight ahead," said Master Chirrut. Bodhi didn't know if this was literal or metaphorical so he settled for nodding his head and got a laugh in return. "Go on, then," Master Chirrut said, clapping him on the shoulder, and Bodhi went without looking back.

\-----

It took him ten months to work his way up to imperial jobs – small runs in-system first, ferrying merchandise down to NaJedha and back, then out-system doing much the same. He had some small advantage in flying skills that were half learned from the memory of his most recent vision, but they took refining. When he had that down pat, he set himself the task of making a reputation as a pilot: solid, reliable. Fastidious and honest with his deliveries, scrupulous with his paperwork. Capable of getting himself and his cargo out of a tight spot when necessary, but otherwise disinclined to flashiness or anything reckless. 

There were many like him in the Empire. Bodhi tried not to find it disheartening – that so many good pilots and good people were willing to sign on. He supposed that most of them didn't know the truth; that wasn't _so_ unbelievable. There had been a time when Jedha welcomed the Empire, had petitioned for entrance just like so many other planets. There had been a time when being part of the Empire meant wider trade access and protection from slavers and a voice in shaping the future of the galaxy. Perhaps if he hadn't grown up in the temple, he wouldn't know the truth, either. He'd have just gone on with his life, found some sort of work without caring who exactly he worked for, settled down with a nice partner, raised a few children. Died with all the rest when Jedha was destroyed.

But he _had_ grown up in the Temple and he _did_ know the truth. Those things were in the past, unchangeable. The future was ahead, malleable, if only he could figure out how.

The night before his first run to Eadu, he dreamed. This time he didn't need action to change things – just the knowing was enough – and so he dreamed and woke and slept and dreamed again.

 

_The bor gullet's arms are slick with slime and Bodhi's sweat. He pushes his right shoulder forward into the spines and feels it give way, just a little, feels it twist, and—_

 

He dreamed of what could be: Meeting the man – and oh, he was beautiful, strong and broad and with weariness in his eyes. Bodhi loved him already.

_twist, and—_

Learning the man's name: Galen Erso. He could greet him by it; but no, that just made him suspicious.

_twist, and—_

He could make casual small talk in the canteen; no, it took too long to get them beyond that, and when he tried to speed it up all he got was suspicion again. 

_twist, and—_

He could ask him for directions on the base; no, too brusque, too much like a transaction, too much like he was just part of the Empire's vast bureaucracy. 

_twist, and twist, and twist, a hundred times, only a moment between each of Bodhi's waking breaths—_

Sometimes the potential path would get them beyond meeting to sex but never more than that, never something that could flower into love.

_twist, and—_

And then, at last, a path that doesn't end in disaster. A path that can let Bodhi earn Galen's trust.

A smile. He'd have to start with a smile.

\-----

Eadu was dark and wet and the landing pad was too small for comfort. But Bodhi had barely been there an hour when he saw Galen.

His hair was curled, damp, just below the line of his jaw; it glistened in the too-bright light of the canteen. His movements were sharp and controlled as he carried his tray over to a table in the corner. He sat with his back to the wall, letting his gaze sweep methodically across the room as he ate. It would have broken Bodhi's heart but for the way his whole body had snapped to attention at the sight of Galen's face.

He waited until the gaze came to him, then caught Galen's eye and offered a smile. After a moment Galen smiled back, a hesitant quirk of the mouth, and Bodhi had to force himself to turn back to his food, to let it be.

\-----

He saw Galen seven times more before they spoke – always in passing, in a hallway or the canteen or at the requisition station. Always a shared glance, a smile. Nothing more. Bodhi's heart was in his chest, waiting for Galen to make the first move. He knew that was how it had to be, he _knew_ , but still he ached for the moment. 

One late evening in the canteen, they saw each other – Bodhi at a table eating a vaguely nutritional mash and Galen with his tray, a plate piled high with the same and a tall glass of juice. Their gazes met and Bodhi smiled. He allowed himself only that one glance – but he'd barely managed to look down and take another bite when he felt a presence slide onto the bench across the table from him. 

Up close, Galen was even more beautiful, creased and worn at the edges of his eyes, watchful. "I've seen you," he said. "Bodhi Rook, is that right?"

Bodhi nodded and swallowed. "I'm a pilot. Eadu is my assigned run."

"Why do you look at me?" Galen asked bluntly.

Bodhi paused, then put out his left hand on the table, palm up. It was a pilot's signal: 'do you want to go to bed with me?' He carried on eating with his other hand, casual. As if there was nothing more than a night together at stake.

Galen stared at his hand, considering. Then he reached over just as casually, tapped his finger in the center of Bodhi's palm. Acknowledgment. Acceptance. Bodhi smiled.

\-----

Galen's bed was hard and bare, ascetic, but Bodhi barely noticed it. They had scrambled out of their clothes and now were kneeling on the bed, kissing, skin on skin, Galen's body a long, silken stretch against his own. Galen's hands were in his hair, loosening it from its braids. His own hands were tracing the broad outline of Galen's shoulders, the sharp jut of his shoulder blades. 

"Tell me what you want," Galen said, mouthing at the scruff of Bodhi's jaw. "You've been looking. Thinking about it, presumably." There was a hint of something dry in his voice, a little irony despite its breathlessness.

Bodhi didn't know whether to laugh or groan, so he settled for doing both at once. "I want to look at you some more," he said. "I want to touch you." He slid his hands down over Galen's chest, feeling the scratch of hair against his palms. He'd held Galen in his arms a hundred times, watched him with his lips parted and his eyes dark, tasted his kisses. But it had always been in one of those distant, insubstantial paths – always a possibility rather than a truth. It had never felt real.

The only thing that felt real was the touch of the monster.

But now he had this, something to fix in his memory, something to keep as an anchor when the visions took him again. 

"Look, then," Galen said. "Touch." He leaned back, baring himself to Bodhi's eyes, and it was utterly breathtaking to be given that much. 

He took his time, touching with fingertips first and then the sides of his thumbs and then his palms, feeling the way Galen's muscles flexed under the touch, the way his skin felt different to each part of Bodhi's hands. He traced the lines of scars – there were so many, cross-hatched across chest and arm and thigh, some in clusters and some as a sharp, slashed line. 

"Beautiful," Bodhi said, and Galen turned his face away, eyes closed. 

"Are they?"

" _Yes_." All of Bodhi's scars were in his mind, but he still knew what it felt like to carry them. He leaned in and kissed one at random, as tender as he could make it, and was rewarded when Galen shuddered under the touch. Another scar, another kiss, and another, and another, feeling Galen's cock swell, close enough that he could have turned and taken it in his mouth. In another moment he would have – but then Galen took him in his arms, pushing Bodhi back against the sheets. 

"Now it's my turn," he said, and Bodhi could do nothing but moan. Galen's hands were strong and his body sweat-slick where they rocked together, but it was nothing like the monster's body. It was good, so incredibly good – Bodhi's cock ached and he let his hips roll upwards. 

Galen kissed Bodhi's mouth and his neck and the hollow at the base of his throat, kissed him until they were both panting. He reached between them and curled his hand around Bodhi's cock, began to stroke him, slow and sure; Bodhi clutched at his arms, groaning, losing himself in the feel of it. He wanted to be closer; his heart was hammering in his chest but he wanted more. "Please," he managed. "Please— will you—" Galen's mouth stuttered against his cheek.

"You want—"

"I want you inside me," Bodhi said.

Galen groaned. "Yes." He pulled away just far enough to reach under the bed; when he came up again, he was holding a small bottle. "How do you—"

"Like this," Bodhi said. "So I can see you."

Galen kissed him again, urgent, passionate, and pressed him back down into the sheets. Bodhi slung one leg up over his hip, tugging him close; he moaned when Galen's slick fingers began to tease him open. There was something unbearably good about Galen's broad warmth over him, a sort of safety in giving himself up to it.

"You're incredible," Galen said. He pressed one finger in, gentle.

"More," Bodhi said, desperate now. "More, please." Galen groaned and added another finger – too soon for it to be easy but the sting of pain just enough to be grounding. Bodhi arched his back and began rocking into it, his cock stuttering against the heat of Galen's thigh. He kissed Galen's chin, his throat, an uncoordinated slide of mouth over skin. Bodhi's hair was slick with sweat, clinging to the sides of his neck and crumpling behind his head. "In me now," he said. "I'm ready. Galen—"

He didn't have to wait long. Galen lined himself up and pushed in, a long, slow movement that brought them flush against each other. "Yes," Bodhi said, "yes, _yes_ ," and then they were fucking in earnest, deep and hard. He put one hand on the back of Galen's neck and drew his face down so that they could kiss properly. He wanted to close his eyes, to focus on touch – and he yet didn't want to close his eyes, didn't want to lose even a second of this. 

They moved together for long moments, rolling hips and gasps and sighs, tongues and teeth, fingertips and palms. Galen moaned with each thrust, his eyes wild. Bodhi groaned his own groans, clinging on, trying to get himself closer and closer and closer. Galen was inside him, filling him up until there was no room for memory or thought or the monster's touch or anything but this exact moment.

When they came it was Galen first, Bodhi seconds later, so overwhelmed that he had to close his eyes at last, press his face into the hollow of Galen's neck as pleasure rolled over him as intense as anything he'd ever felt.

Afterwards they lay in silence, still wrapped around each other. Galen combed his fingers softly through the tangled strands of Bodhi's hair. "Thank you," he said at last. "Bodhi. I— will you come to me again?"

Bodhi kissed him. "As long as you will have me, I'll come."

\-----

Over the weeks and months that followed, Bodhi fell in love. He had loved Galen already, of course, but that was an idealized love, a dreaming love. The love of that distant and beautiful path, the love that comes from seeing someone and knowing they would do a great, noble thing. 

This, instead, was a solid love. A love of Galen's snorting laugh, of his distaste for lemon. A love of his wholly unreasonable fascination with Bodhi's mustache. A love of the way science thrilled him and he could make almost any discussion of mechanics sound like art. 

They talked about their childhood and teenage lives: Bodhi at the temple and Galen on Grange, an agricultural planet that had only its location as a hyperspace jump point to bring it to anyone's notice, and then on Brentaal in the Republic Futures Program, working on clean power initiatives. Bodhi couldn't help but be aware of the similarities between them, both marked as something out of the ordinary at a young age, both sent away from their parents, both getting caught up in something bigger than themselves. He didn't dare tell Galen about his visions, but he could hint at the things he'd learned in the temple, the other children with their gifts and the masters with their wisdom, the singing of the Kyber crystals when the wind blew from the west.

He hoped that Galen was beginning to love him in turn, to trust him, but he didn't know for sure. There was something guarded about him even when they were alone together, even when they were naked and making love. Galen clung to him sometimes, pressed his face into Bodhi's neck or the crook of his elbow or his thigh, kissed him with frantic tenderness. But then sometimes his face was closed off, his eyes distant, his touch idle. Bodhi didn't know how to reach him – he'd had no visions for six months and so he had nothing new to go on, nothing to guide him. 

Maybe that meant he was doing the right thing. Maybe it meant that the right thing was beyond him now, and he was just waiting for the moment when he'd have to contain the damage.

\-----

One night after supper, Galen took his hand and led him not to his quarters but out to the landing pad. Bodhi raised his eyebrows but followed obediently. Outside it was dark and rain was falling – rain was _always_ falling on Eadu – but there was a corner of the pad just barely tucked under the shelter of the overhang. It was enough to keep the worst of the rain off but the floor was misted damp from reflected spray. They sat, feet dangling over the edge under the metal mesh of the railing. And suddenly Bodhi realized why they were here. In the ceaseless patter of the rain, no one could hear them speak. In the sunless shadows, no one could read their lips.

"Bodhi, I—" Galen put his hand over Bodhi's. "I have something I want to tell you."

Bodhi leaned his head onto Galen's shoulder. "You can tell me," he said. Galen murmured something to himself, too low for him to make out, and then he squeezed Bodhi's hand and told him.

Some of it he had known, from his visions. There was a weakness in the sphere they were building – the pilots had begun calling it the Death Star, as if they didn't care what _that_ said about the Empire – and Galen had put it there. 

But there were things that he hadn't known. The way Krennic had murdered Galen's wife right in front of him, forced him back to the work on a weapon that he despised. The first days and weeks of Galen's time on Eadu, now blurred in his memory into one long fog of despair. The moment when he'd realized he could make a difference, slow down the project, construct a weakness that would allow the station to be destroyed completely. Weeks more, figuring out where exactly to make the flaw, not just where it would do the most good, but where he could manage it without giving himself away. The endless grinding of making it happen once he'd decided, the exhaustion of trying desperately not to show what he was thinking in front of anyone at all, in case one of the other engineers had thought to inform on him. The way it felt horribly good to lose himself in the work, day and night, barely stopping to eat and sleep, penance and his own obsessive tendencies all wrapped together into one.

Meeting Bodhi and finding joy again, not knowing whether to hate himself for it or to cling with everything he had. Whether to take it as a sign of his own weakness or a sign from the Force. But knowing, in the end, that he couldn't stop caring for him, that he couldn't keep silent.

"Will you help me?" Galen said, after he'd laid it all out, the things that made him ashamed and the things that could be used as a weapon against him. Laid it all out like a gift at Bodhi's feet. "I love you," he said. "I love you and I've no right to ask this and it could very well get you killed, but will you help me?"

Bodhi turned his hand over and clasped Galen's firmly. "I'll help you," he said.

 

_He's beginning to get the trick of it now, not to avoid the pain but to let it roll through some part of his mind that is locked away. The bor gullet is powerful but it isn't smart, it's a creature rather than a person. Which means he can choose what to feed it, if he's careful. He can arch his back and push out with his elbow, he can open his hand and feed the bor gullet some specific part of his life. It feasts on his memories and, in the crudeness of its grasp, crumbs go falling away._

 

"Come with me," Bodhi said. They hadn't talked much after Galen's confession, only gone to bed together and made love in the dark, slow and clinging and desperate. That night Bodhi had dreamed, woken with blood on his bottom lip from where he'd bitten down. Galen had slept on, unaware.

The next morning Bodhi had been off to Jedha again even before breakfast, leaving Galen with a kiss and a look that hopefully conveyed his intention to follow through. 

He'd had the whole five days of the trip to figure out what he wanted to do next.

When he'd returned to Jedha they'd had dinner together and then snuck out to the landing pad, casting glances at each other as if all they wanted was privacy for a clandestine tryst. It was an excuse that wouldn't hold water if examined too closely – they'd been together in Galen's quarters for months now – but hopefully it would serve for long enough. 

"I don't dare leave," Galen said. "If I do, Krennic will know. They'll look at everything I've done – they might find it."

"If you leave, we can take the information to the rebellion that much faster," Bodhi said. He could still remember the vision, taking the holochip to Jedha and being thrown in with the bor gullet – he had a name for the monster now, though that gave him little solace. The rebellion hadn't trusted him, which was certainly reasonable, but the vision had ended with him being torn from the monster's arms, knowing that the planet was moments from destruction. Sending him with the chip wouldn't be enough. They needed Galen himself.

"I only have part of the information," Galen said. "We'd need all of it to expose the vulnerability – and they don't keep the full plans here, for obvious reasons. The rest is in the archive on Scarif."

"So we go to Scarif," said Bodhi. "We can leave something to make Krennic think we're going to, oh… Jakku, perhaps. It's a place that people go to hide. Then we go to Scarif. I can get us in there." He hasn't seen Scarif yet, doesn't know anything about it except that it's an imperial planet. But after all these years, he has faith that he'll find out what he needs to know.

"How?"

Bodhi pressed his lips together, trying to figure out what to say to make Galen understand. "You believe in the Force," he said at last.

"I— " Galen said, and then, "Yes. I do."

"Then I can get us in," Bodhi said.

Galen looked at him for a long moment, then turned away to look out at the labyrinthine crags and the dark rain. When he turned back, there was resolution in his face. "All right," he said. "I'll come with you."

\-----

They made plans, over the next few weeks. Bodhi flew to Jedha and back and then Jedha and back again. On his last visit he bought a scrap of paper and an old-fashioned pen in the market, wrote down as much of a message as he dared. "Prepare to go, take as much as you can. Whatever crystals you have, as many children. If I fail, there will be nothing left." He signed it with a hasty sketch of a rook and addressed it to Master Baze, then wrapped it around a few credits and left it in one of the temple's offering cups. Either it would get there or it wouldn't, but at least he'd done something.

 

_The bor gullet tightens its grip, as if it can sense it's losing control. But Bodhi isn't trying to escape anymore._

 

This time the vision curled over him as they came out of hyperspace above Scarif. It lasted only a second – not even enough for him to see beyond that one gleaming moment. But it was enough to let the security code for the shield drop into his mind and then he was back in himself, Galen's hand halfway to his shoulder in obvious concern.

"Bodhi—"

Bodhi shook his head, then reached for the radio and clicked it on. "Cargo shuttle SW-0608 requesting a landing pad."

The radio crackled. "Cargo shuttle SW-0608, you're not listed on the arrival schedule."

"Acknowledged, Gate Control. We were rerouted from Eadu Flight Station. Transmitting clearance code now." He typed it in, rapid and confident, but there was still a breathless moment while it transmitted.

The radio crackled again. "Cargo shuttle SW-0608? You are cleared for entry, landing pad seven. Acknowledge, please."

"SW-0608 proceeding to LP seven as instructed," Bodhi said, and clicked the radio off again. They'd arrived on the night side of the planet but Scarif's sun was just beginning to appear over the curve of the horizon and the square of the shield gate revealed light glimmering off ocean waters. He steered the ship towards it, waiting for Galen's questions, but nothing came. Bodhi chanced a nervous glance sideways and their eyes met. 

Galen only looked curious, not accusing, but Bodhi still felt guilt sweep through him. There were so many secrets between them. He wondered when he'd be able to share them. Not now, not now. He bowed his head for a moment, then turned his attention back to steering, following the neat, orderly queue of other cargo ships. They passed through the gate; the landing track engaged and then locked. Bodhi took his hands off the controls, just in time for another vision to slash through him like lightning.

"That main building down there," he said. It came out even; he wondered if the pain was actually lessening or if he was just becoming numb to it. "What is it?"

"That's the Citadel Tower," said Galen. "They keep all the Imperial structure archives in there. That's where we're going."

"Yes," Bodhi said. "That's where we're going."

 

_He opens his mouth and sets his teeth into the bor gullet's flesh, spines and all, bites down until he's sure that it can't shake him off._

 

"Cargo shuttle SW-0608, be prepared to receive inspection team."

"Ready?" Bodhi murmured.

"Ready," said Galen. He slipped behind one of the crates.

The inspection team was one man – Bodhi didn't know if that was because soldiers were in high demand elsewhere or if it was just standard bureaucratic cost-cutting. He leaned towards the second, especially after the man approached and offered them a decidedly lack-luster greeting.

"You probably want the manifest," Bodhi said.

"Yeah, that would be helpful."

"It's just down here," Bodhi said, and when the soldier turned to follow, Galen hit him sharply over the head.

 

_The bor gullet tastes sour, like greens left in the sun too long, harvested and stored but too late, rotting already. Bodhi has to fight not to choke on the scent of it._

 

Bodhi's stolen uniform and Galen's science whites were enough to let them pass unremarked through the hallways at first, but the stormtrooper presence increased as they neared the archive banks. Bodhi had the trooper's gun but he didn't dare use it, not unless he had to, so at the next sound of footsteps he tugged Galen into a side turning just out of sight. They waited there in silence until the stormtroopers had gone past and the sound died away entirely.

"What now?" Galen murmured.

Bodhi rubbed his hand over his jaw. "The archive is six hallways down, left, right, then through the archivist command center. I'm sure there will be someone there, so we—"

A vision swept over him, sharp as lightning and then gone again even before he could blink. "Someone's coming," he said. "We'll have to—" _Back the way we came,_ he thought, but no, another vision hit, and that wouldn't work. _The next turning,_ no, _right instead of left,_ no, _straight ahead past two hallways and then left_ , yes, that was what they needed. Bodhi tugged Galen after him and they broke into a run, skidding around the corner into the next safe spot just in time for the hollow, uniform thump of boots to grow louder, and pass, and then grow soft again.

Another vision then – Bodhi wanted to gasp with the pain of it and he kept silent only by clenching his fists tight into Galen's robes. 

"Bodhi…"

"Do you trust me?" Bodhi asked.

"Of course I—"

Bodhi used his grip on Galen's robes to shake him, and he fell silent. "Do you trust me?" Bodhi asked again, as seriously as he could. He looked Galen in the eye.

Galen took a deep breath. "I trust you," he said.

"Then we have to split up. You go to the archives and get the plans. Four hallways up, left, right, and the control system is there. I'll draw them off, then meet you back at the ship." The vision had showed him many other options. But they'd all been unacceptable.

"I don't know what I'm looking for," Galen said. "The archives, they're huge."

"You're looking for the schematics bank, data tower two. It still has Stardust as the project code name." Bodhi let himself smile at that, just for a fraction of a second. "Find the record in the archivist's control panel and have the system pull it." Bodhi closed his eyes, let the vision take him. "It will deliver to a box next to the console. Take the whole thing."

"Bodhi—"

"Then get back to the ship. If I'm not there in fifteen minutes or if a squad comes after you, take off and get out of here."

"I can't leave you!" Galen said.

"You said you trusted me," Bodhi said. "Then trust that I know what needs to be done. Trust the Force. This is how it has to be. Promise me you'll do it just the way I said."

"Bodhi—"

" _Promise me._ "

For a moment Galen just looked at him, breathing hard. "I promise you," he said at last, low and half broken. 

Bodhi kissed him then, kissed him so as not to blurt out the words crowding themselves onto his tongue. _I love you. I knew you before we met and I loved you then and I love you now. I've built my life around saving this galaxy but I'm spaced if I'll do it without saving you. If nothing else, I'm going to save you._

\-----

They separated, Galen onward to the archives and Bodhi off to the left. When he was far enough away, he abandoned his helmet and let his calm walking pace turn into a jog and then a flat out run – it looked suspicious, certainly, but that was the point. The visions had given him a plan of the base, sort of, and he decided that the best way to divert their attention was to head for the officers' quarters, make it look like an assassination attempt. There were certainly plenty of people who'd enjoy seeing Krennic dead; he wouldn't even have to sell it very hard. 

_Down to the end of this hall,_ he thought. _Then right, right again. Up in the elevator and then right again,_ but he only managed the first of the two right turns before coming around the corner and running smack into a squadron of stormtroopers. 

"Hey, what are you—" 

Bodhi fired a rapid burst, dragging the gun across the hallway to catch as many as he could, then turned and ran before they could do more than shout at him. A different series of turns took him back to the elevator, this time from the far side. But there were more stoomtroopers here, this time ready for him instead of caught flat-footed. Bodhi dodged left and ran frantically, dodging around corners until he came to another command center. He slammed his hand down on the communication switch.

"Rebels in the base," he said. "They almost got me but I managed to get away. They're heading up – the officers' quarters, I think."

"Who is this?" 

"This is GK four three—" Bodhi interrupted himself with a shot to the console. Hopefully they'd buy it, think the rebels had cut him off and he'd had to run again. _Now what?_ The vision hit him again almost before he could finish the thought and then he was off again, following the corridor that it had shown him.

An alarm sounded over his head, lights strobing and a strident voice announcing a lockdown of the upper levels. Bodhi carried on running, letting the visions lead him. They were almost constant now, passing between one breath and the next, telling him which way to go and which way not to go, when to wait for a squadron to pass out of sight and when to stand and fire. He wasn't a fighter, hadn't been one in any of the paths he'd seen. But he remembered enough of the basics from Master Baze's lessons at the temple and the visions gave him the rest, the knowledge of when to duck a blaster shot, when to turn around a corner, low, so that he could catch a trooper in the knees and send them to the floor. 

He was beginning to learn – he couldn't die here. If he died, then he wouldn't meet the bor gullet and if he didn't meet it, then he couldn't know what he knew. Every path that he saw led to it eventually. The rebellion used it to test his sincerity, or it was taken from Jedha by the Empire and used to rip truth from men's minds, or he escaped to some other planet and was thrown into prison with the beast in the cell beside him.

There were a hundred ways it could happen, a thousand. No matter what path Bodhi took, it ended there. And since he wasn't there yet, he couldn't die. But he could lose everything else: Galen dead, Jedha destroyed, the galaxy falling irrevocably under Vader's thumb. His own survival didn't feel like much in the face of that.

He spent too long thinking about it; the moment of inattention cost him and he took a blaster shot to the arm, a bright slash of electric fire. It was only a shock, at first, and then the pain hit a second later, burning through skin and nerves to the bone. He nearly dropped his own gun, but he was good at working through pain now and so he gritted his teeth and fired back, letting the visions take him again.

He ran and fired and fought and ran again. The base hallways were filled with blaster fire, alarm lights strobing off the smoke. By now he had no idea how long he'd been here or where exactly he was, if he was close enough to the officers' quarters to assassinate Krennic after all. 

And then he saw it – the path back to the ship. Galen was waiting for him.

 _I'm coming,_ Bodhi thought. He turned again, left instead of right. Most of the stormtroopers were behind him now; his change of direction had thrown them off briefly, but he knew that they'd find him again soon enough. He had to move fast.

More running, the occasional panicked scramble across the slick floors as he turned a corner too quickly. He hit another squadron of troopers and had to duck into a doorway for a long minute so that he could pick them off, one by one. Then he ran again. 

At last the visions showed him the door outside and he stumbled out into the morning air. The landing pad was just ahead; he was tired, so tired, but he forced himself to cover the last few yards as fast as possible, all but falling onto the floor of the shuttle. He could see Galen in the pilot's seat – the look on his face was filled with such love and relief that it gave Bodhi the strength to get to his feet again.

"Go," he said, slamming his hand down on the switch to pull the cargo door closed. "We have to go _now._ Get us up above the planet and I'll take over."

Galen's hands were already moving over the panel; the shuttle lifted into the air with a clumsy jerk. Bodhi clung to a strap, breathing hard. The visions dropped away from his mind and in the absence of that pain he was hit with the full force of his burned arm. He hissed out a breath. 

"Bodhi—"

"I'm all right," he said. His hair had come loose from its braids and was stuck, sweat-slick, to the sides of his neck. "I'm all right. Just keep going."

They soared upwards – not as gracefully as Bodhi would have done it, but he'd only had time to give Galen the basics. It was good enough, and as they evened out, Bodhi was able to work his way forwards and fall into the co-pilot's seat.

"Will they close the shield?" Galen asked. He looked over, caught sight of Bodhi's charred arm and nearly reached for him before dragging his attention back to the controls.

"No, they won't do it now – not when they think there was only one of us, bent on assassination. It's not worth interrupting the whole flow of traffic." He took a deep breath. "Let me take over now."

"If you'll let me bandage your arm," said Galen. 

Bodhi couldn't help but smile at that. "Thank you." Galen reached up and threw the switch to change primary pilot control, then got up and hurried into the back. When he returned, he was carrying the medkit. Bodhi radioed for an exit position and once again, his codes were enough to achieve it without drawing suspicion. Then, at last, they were out of the shield and into free space; Bodhi would head towards Eadu until they were distant enough, then change course.

"Where are we going now?" Galen said. His hands were careful as they dabbed burn paste onto Bodhi's arm and then wrapped him slowly in a bandage.

"Yavin four," Bodhi said. "That's where we'll go."

Galen nodded. He didn't say anything for a moment, and then at last he said, quietly, "I thought you might not come back. I thought maybe it was too much to hope for."

Bodhi put his hand over Galen's hand, looked up to meet his gaze. "Nothing is too much to hope for," he said. "And I promise you, I will always come back."

 

_They're locked together, limbs and minds intertwined, twisted in the throes of what will be death for them both. Bodhi's back arches as the bor gullet tastes his memories – not just the escape from Scarif, not just the passage to Yavin or the long hours of argument with the Rebel Alliance until finally Leia was persuaded to believe them. Not just the battle to destroy the Death Star, the moment when Bodhi had let the visions take him, let them guide him to make that one perfect shot. Not just the sight of the Death Star shattering into a ringed constellation of light._

_Bodhi's braids have grown to halfway down his back but the bor gullet is ripping at them, scattering white strands over its own mottled brown and purple skin. Its suckers pull at the scar on his forearm – old now, set permanently because it had taken too long to get from Scarif to Yavin and they'd had no bacta on board. There are other scars, too, places where he'd had a split second to choose between saving his own skin and saving a mission. One had been earned on the mission just after he'd told Galen the truth, after their fight, after all the cruel words they'd flung at each other – liar, self-absorbed martyr – and he'd gone away angry and despairing and only come back by the skin of his teeth. Scars enough on his skin to match the ones in his mind but he can't regret any of them, not when they've brought him here._

_Jedha's sand is gritty and familiar where it's grinding into his skin, thick with spice that cuts even through the sour smell of the creature. Bodhi can hear, outside, the traffic in the market, the calls of vendors and voices raised in song, the hum of Kyber crystals calling out from the temple over the whole city. The city he'd come home to after that devastating mission and found Galen's face white with fear; the city where they'd made love under the stars with tears in their eyes and Bodhi had promised once again that he was always going to come back. The city where he'd lived these last thirty years. The city where he and Galen had grown old together._

_Galen is gone now, died in his sleep a month ago. Bodhi had quietly begun setting his affairs in order then, and when that was done, he had only this left to do._

_They'd kept the bor gullet locked up safe here in the temple, fed only with meat but kept alive just for this. And now Bodhi has walked here across the sands, has stepped into the arms of the creature knowing he will give himself to it, give his whole life._

_Bodhi is trembling from the pain, growing weak, but he holds on until he's sure that his task is done. The bor gullet reaches the end, has read every part of his life and the others that he might have lived. It's finished, and Bodhi is finished, and he feels nothing but joy as he opens his hands and his mind and lets himself fall into nothingness at last._


End file.
